The WOW seminar on immigrant women’s nutrition and health was a step in the right direction towards closing the gap between academic researchers and service providers.

Josephine Etowa
Associate Professor, School of Nursing, University of Ottawa
My nomination is an indication that our hard work in building Canada is recognized. All we do is to serve the community in return for embracing us when we needed it.  

Mehdi Mahdavi
Ottawa Immigrant Entrepreneurship Awards Nominee
In our city’s history, immigrants have always played an important role. They build our economic prosperity, diversify our culture, contribute to our social vitality.

Jim Watson
Mayor of Ottawa
The City of Ottawa will continue to play a lead role in the implementation of the Ottawa Immigration Strategy, just as we did in the founding of OLIP.

Steve Desroches
City Councillor and Deputy Mayor of Ottawa
Canada has been shaped by people who came from all over the world to build this country. WOW offers a platform for us to celebrate this history and the future it will help…

Alex Munter, Chair of the OLIP Council and President and CEO of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and Ottawa Children’s Treatment Centre
The Ottawa Chinese Community Service Centre is so happy to have joined the OLIP Health and Wellbeing Sector Table. It is clear that OLIP cares about immigrants and refugees and…

Wendy Tang, Ottawa Chinese Community Service Centre
The OLIP Council is committed to leadership.  In only a few years, we have a common vision and priorities, and are up to the task of implementing the Ottawa Immigration Strategy.

Salimatou Diallo
OLIP Council Vice Chair, Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario
I was happy to see integration to Algonquin territory and indigenous culture related programming in 2014 WOW. Please continue to involve local Aboriginal organisations and…

Linda Manning
WOW 2014 participant, Senior Fellow, University of Ottawa
I’m really impressed with the level of energy and commitment around the Health and Wellbeing table and look forward to continuing collaboration between OLIP and OPH.

Marcela Tapia
Ottawa Public Health
OLIP helps to unite and share scarce resources for greater impact by working together in the field of student education.

Walter Piovesan
Associate Director of Education, Ottawa Carleton District School Board

Expert Input in Planned Areas of Action by Dr. Michael Haan and Dr. Branka Agic

August 21, 2015

The Forum objectives included bringing expert attention on two areas of planned action by OLIP partners:

  • How Ottawa leverage administrative data to inform local planning by Dr. Michael Haan an Associate Professor at Western University and Canada Research Chair in Population and Social Policy; and
  • How to tackle mental health challenges among immigrants and refugees, by Dr. Branka Agic, Manager of Health Equity at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).

Dr. Michael Haan‘s presentation provided a number of good insights on how Ottawa can make use of the Immigrant Database (IMDB), a unique longitudinal administrative data file containing landing and tax filing information on Canadian immigrants, developed and maintained collaboratively Citizenship and Immigration Canada and Statistics Canada.  To illustrate the utility of this dataset for planning, Dr. Haan provided an analysis of Ottawa’s ability to attract newcomers, including immigrants moving from other cities (secondary immigration); and how Ottawa compares to similar-sized cities in Canada. His presentation also spoke to the future of administrative data and the need for data development, registries and “data clouds”.

Dr. Branka Agic, Manager of Health Equity at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) gave a very timely presentation on the Mental Health Challenges among Immigrants & Refugees. Dr. Agic’ highlighted the determinants of mental health challenges and the barriers and facilitators to care. She also provided some recommendations for service improvements which included Health equity planning and changed focus towards prevention and promotion.

Click here to view the full video coverage of Dr. Michael Haan’s speech
Click here to read Dr. Michael Haan’s PowerPoint presentation
Click here to view the full video coverage of Dr. Branka Agic’s speech
Click here to read Dr. Branka Agic’s t PowerPoint presentation